End of UKIP? Leader Paul Nuttall fails to win seat in Brexit heartlands

By-elections in the north of England have raised questions over the future of UKIP, as new leader Paul Nuttall was humiliatingly routed. It was a bad night for Labour, too, as Jeremy Corbyn’s party barely hung on to Stoke but lost its seat in Copeland.

“This city will not allow ourselves to be defined by last year’s referendum. And we will not allow ourselves to be divided by the result,” Labour’s new Stoke MP Gareth Snell said in his victory speech.

“For those who have come to Stoke-on-Trent to sow hatred and division, and to try to turn us away from our friends and neighbours, I have one message – you have failed.

“Tonight the people of Stoke-on-Trent have chosen the politics of hope over the politics of fear. We have said with one voice that hatred and bigotry are not welcome here.”

“If you want to be an electoral force and a political force in this country you have to be able to win by-elections in difficult circumstances as a third party,” Manchester University politics professor Rob Ford told Reuters.

“If they can’t do that even in the most propitious of seats people will start to have questions.”

Speaking from a conference in the US he added: “UKIP has to bide its time. But elections are about policy and they are also about the way you go about it, about managing data and choosing your targets. We have a lot of work to do.”

Farage also thought UKIP’s campaign had been too mainstream and centrist, prompting rumors he may be planning yet another return to the leadership.

UKIP finished on social media

The internet seemed to revel in UKIP’s humiliating defeat in Stoke, with commentators from both sides of the political spectrum taking the chance to mock Nuttall and his party.

“You would think UKIP would be delighted that an outsider arriving in the area wasn’t made welcome and given a job,” joked Twitter comedian Nick Motown.

You would think UKIP would be delighted that an outsider arriving in the area wasn’t made welcome and given a job.

Scottish columnist Angela Haggerty also thought the “airtime” given to the party was disproportionate to its size, especially now that both past and present leaders Nigel Farage and Paul Nuttall “failed to get elected as MPs.”